


The Bad Ending

by Karini



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Don’t read this, Elven Gods Do Reapers BS, F/M, How do you write mage fight scenes?, Mage fight scene, Peer Pressure, Please don’t hurt me, Shit Hits The Fan, They encouraged me to do it, Tragedy, fight to the death, nope nope nope, this is exactly what you think it is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-26
Updated: 2015-02-26
Packaged: 2018-03-15 07:40:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3439067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karini/pseuds/Karini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You told me once… to figure out where I went wrong, and start again. Well, here I am, starting again."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Bad Ending

**Author's Note:**

> So... the prompt for this story popped up in late night /r/solasmancers irc chat as something to stir the pot of angst, and I don't know why but we ran with it and it had to be written. For some reason I felt compelled to write it. 
> 
> The prompt was pretty simple: The quizzy has no choice but to kill Solas, however heartrending it is.
> 
> What happens in this fic isn't my headcannon at all.

“In the Fade, I saw a tombstone with your name on it.”

“Ah… Interesting.”

“Don’t you want to know what was written on it?”

“Not particularly.”

“…”

“What troubles you, vhenan?”

Ellana slipped her fingers into his and they curled comfortably in his hands. She lifted them to her lips and she planted soft kisses on his knuckles. Solas’ eyes traveled from their entwined hands up to her loving gaze and when their eyes met, she murmured softly, “Your fears will not come to pass as long as you have me. Ar lath ma, and you will always have me.”

He kissed her then, well and true, it made her heart burst with song and warmth, and she will always remember how passionate, searching, and desperate his kisses felt.

~~~

If there ever was a Maker, Ellana beseeched him now for salvation upon the scorched fields of gore that swept across Thedas in the wake of the Dread Wolf’s reckoning. 

The fear was paralyzing. Terror coiled its claws under her skull, denying her eyes peace from broken bodies and charred, crimson earth. Death was vast and unending with the mist of blood hovering thick in the air, splashing on to the reddening sunset.

Red. Everything was red. The lives of her soldiers and allies were slowly sinking into the soil of the once lush Emerald Dales. She sobbed an agonized, frustrated cry as she rolled over the body of her Commander. His death was not the first of her inner circle, but definitely one of the most tactical and devastating. She didn’t linger long to pray for Falon’Din’s safe passage to the Beyond, as the same God of Death was now currently blanketing the skies with swarming, murders of crows.

Fashioned with Fade-embued weapons enchanted by June, the elven pantheon’s punishing will tore into Thedas unrelentingly. Elgar’nan’s vengeance leveled the mountains. Sylaise’s fires swallowed and razed whole cities. Ghilain’nain’s monstrosities and Dirthamen’s horrific Varterrals hunted alongside Andruil’s impossibly numerous arrows. 

She had not witnessed true terror until she joined her allies in their last stand against the fabled elvhen creators. So deep seated were her fears that she had succumbed to the devilish allure of beings the corners of Thedas only spoke of in hushed, crazed mutterings.

Old, ancient voices crooned to her in her sleep. They clawed hungrily at her desperation and sunk their teeth into her consciousness. Seductive and entrancing, the voices sang and captivated her with promises of deliverance.

Their names: Anaris, Geldauran, Daern’thal… they promised relief for her friends and her people. They guided her to their domain with soft, gentle cooing.

“Release us, child, chosen of the traitor… Rebellion is your nature now.”

The anchor sparked a blinding, brilliant emerald, and with her touch upon their prison’s gates, they were free.

Extinction or Enslavement. What would you choose? Ellana chose the one that had a chance of living. A life after a rebellion.

If only she had known. If only she had pried deeper into their selfish, ill-considered dalliance. Would she have been able to unearth his unassuming, quiet and calculating machinations? She could have prevented the mindless slaughter and it was a regret that she will carry for the rest of her life. She was pathetic, weak, and easily wooed by gentle eyes and thoughtful prose.

Vivid still in her mind were his sweet words and their passionate nights. With him, she once found a treasured calm of mind and release with every tender touch. She was haunted by memories of his delicate breath brushing, sucking, and caressing her lips. Her heart wrenched every time she remembered how masterfully deceiving his false love had played her.

His betrayal earth-shattering, the greatest sorrow she had ever felt. Her spirit mourned and she immersed herself in deep, unreachable torment. Every familiar face she stepped over in the defiled Dales stained her hands a darker shade of guilt and remorse.

Grief strengthened her resolve and each time she buried one of her closest companions among mass, makeshift graves, she vowed upon her life that she would not die until his blood completed the fresco in the ruins of Skyhold.

Then she recognized a ripple in the air, an aura unmistakably his.

She broke away from her allies suddenly and without a word, leaving not a single trace of her footsteps. She was compelled by a frenzy of sensations that spurred from the sputtering energies of the anchor. Deep within her gut she knew this compulsion would lead her to him and they were reunited in a burrow, hidden and masked by outside eyes.

It was him. Damn him. She spat out his name in disgust. He regarded her with a gaze as stony and unmoving as his statues that littered desecrated and defiled on the battlefields. 

“What have you done?” he asked her in an accusatory tone one would use with an impulsive child.

“What have _you_ done?” she echoed venomously. 

His voice once made her heart bloom with love and now it commanded forth an immense hatred in her very being. "You told me once… to figure out where I went wrong, and start again.” He paused as his eyes ran over her harried features and his unmoving façade hardened into one of confident conviction. “Well, here I am, starting again."

Hate. Intense hate. How dare he twists her own word against her. She whipped her right arm to the side in a single, swift gesture, clenching her fists with such strength her spirit blade materialized with a violent burst of light. The anchor flared to mirror her response. “Fuck you!” she roared as she lunged forward, letting the fade guide her steps to him. 

Stepping out of the temporal displacement, she sliced at him only to be effortlessly thwarted by his staff. He glared at her incredulously, almost looked alarmed, even hurt, at the fact that she chose to strike him without hesitation.

Their eyes locked and his gaze grew stormy. “Ellana… I do not want to fight you.”

She gasped as she felt invisible hands from the Fade repel her in a force that thrust her back several feet. She shielded herself with a barrier to diminish the force of the push, which allowed her to steady into a brace position at a striking distance still favorable for her.

He followed suit and a cautious barrier encased his form. “I will see to it that you will not be harmed if you surrender.”

She seethed. “Why spare me and not my brethren? I will never surrender to you!” She traced her fingers in the air, drawing upon the overabundance of fire on the fields, and with a quick flourish, she rooted fire mine runes directly underneath him. He jumped out of the trap, as she expected, and she was quick to react, bringing forth an immolate spell where he landed.

He grunted as the flames engulfed him and voraciously ate through his barrier. Ellana took the chance to gather the remnants of her mana reserves and rushed him again in his moment of vulnerability. He deflected her assault by calling upon frost to shield his body, snuffing out the blazes and creating a cover of dust and steam in its wake. A wall of ice shot up to separate them and she slashed at it in unbridled fury. 

“The elves and shemlen are beyond help. I wish you could see that.” A slight gesture of his staff and the Fade ripped into their fight, its essence jerked her toward its unstable epicenter. “If I have to subdue you to surrender, then I have no choice.” 

She screamed as she felt those ghostly hands from the Fade wrench greedily at her mana, steadily depleting and preventing any attempts to naturally replenish. She fell to one knee and fumbled frantically for the vial of lyrium on her belt.

How was he capable of casting so many spells in such rapid succession? He was much stronger than she remembered. Was he toying with her all this time? How dare he… How could he…

Slipping, she was quickly slipping. Think. THINK! “I loved you!” She surprised herself when she heard those words shout from her mouth. The rift’s pull instantly dissolved and she was allowed relief. 

She glanced up to see the haze of frost and soot that shrouded him had dispersed. He stood seemingly unfazed, clothes and skin roughed by her fire, with sorrow etched upon his lightly singed features. “Ellana… I’m sorry.” 

A wave of his hand and her senses startled when a shock prickled her skin, immediately followed by strong fingers of current coursing through her nerves, lashing at her flesh. She let out a bloodcurdling scream. The pain. She didn’t know which pain was more unbearable, the pain from his attacks or the pain from affirming his intent to kill her.

She fell to her side, her back facing him and her body slumped. The electricity fizzled from her veins and she cursed Solas with every fiber of her being. He was intentionally dragging out her agony. Two times now has he had the chance to finish her and he always stopped short. With trembling hands, she managed to draw back the lyrium in her possession.

Mana restored, she donned another barrier. A summoned boulder from the Fade hurled towards her and she countered by casting her field of disruption, the malleable force field successful in slowing the velocity of the boulder.

She pushed up from her elbows and rolled away a safe distance. The boulder impacted the ground and shattered, its shrapnel cutting and piercing her skin as the debris blew past her. Ellana palmed the ground, sweeping in stray energies of benign spirits through her fingers and a wave of cleansing, Fade light washed over her. She then vanished from his sight through the curtains of the Veil.

“You will not win this fight, Ellana.” Solas scowled. The skies darkened and stirred menacingly and it rained fiery destruction. He was trying to lure her out of her concealed safety in the most blatant form of uninhibited power she had ever seen.

She had to get close to him before the cover of the veil cloak ran its course. However powerful this Firestorm spell was, the caster had to remain still to continue channeling it. Ellana took advantage of that and spied her chance. With measured, hasty steps and a blur of motion, she appeared in front of him again and slashed.

Spirit blade met staff once more, but this time one gave way. The staff splintered in two halves and the tip of her blade carved a clean cut across the right of his torso to his left shoulder. He had the foresight to recoil his body back enough to prevent her attack from becoming lethal.

He clutched his side, stumbling back and then she felt his mana harden a fresh barrier over him. She was surprised he didn’t counter her with a spell, but she was eternally glad for it.

This was it. She had him.

She swung in for another attack; her blade punctured his barrier, though not his skin, but it was a triumph just enough to follow up with a surge of the anchor’s power. His defenses burned away when the Veil lifted its cloak from her body, the conjured energy emitted a blinding blast that hurled him against a rock wall. Another step through the fade and she closed the distance between them, halting to stand before his slouched form. 

Her stomach knotted and the anchor cried as if to protest, but she knew only a moment’s weakness would have him recover his bearings and end her. Her sword fist clenched to pulse her mana into its ethereal blade form once more, and with one quick motion, she sank it into his chest with such brutal force, it flung his shoulders back and impaled him against the rock face.

Her spirit blade dissipated in a breathless whisper and without the presence of her sword to stem the blood, his wound began to gush and soak. 

His arms shot out as if he knew to catch her. Her knees buckled and fell under the sudden weight of her body. The anchor’s pull on her mana dwindled and she oddly felt a sense of release. Relief.

Fading. She was fading. She felt his arms circle around her to pull her close so her head rested in the familiar crook of his neck. The blood from the gash she inflicted on him was hot against her skin, making her mind revel in the victory of his fatal injury.

“You… continue to surprise me.” His ragged, beaten voice murmured. With these words, he had forfeited. He was defeated.

But she felt drained, void, and empty. How? A growl climbed up her throat. “What have you done to me?”

Breathless, he answered her. “The anchor… It was my…”

She sobbed, “Say no more,” and understanding washed over her in waves of hopelessness, fear, anxiety, and… she didn’t want to think about it. It was as if she always knew but refused to accept it.

In these fleeting moments, they stayed limp against one another as the battle for the fate of Thedas, the elves, and shemlen raged on without them. She thought them both to be selfish, to disappear from the fields of war to share this final dance together. His fingers managed to find hers and her chest throbbed in anguish as he slipped into them to curl comfortably in her hands. 

She hated herself for allowing it, but she missed his affectionate touch much more than she could bear. They would tell tales of her blasphemy. She was supposed to lead this rebellion against the creators, but here she lay, in the arms of the Fen’Harel himself, forever branding herself as betrayer to all of Thedas.

She felt him suck in a breath to speak, but she spoke first. “What will we be in another world?”

No. Why was she asking this? She almost laughed at the absurdity of it. She was hoping in these last moments, perhaps he would grant her kindness. Closure.

A thoughtful, poignant pause and then he replied, “I wish us to be towering trees. Strong…” He gasped, his breathing beginning to labor, “…and sturdy to weather the ages, wise a—” he grimaced, “…wise and humbled having lived them.”

She flowed a portion of her remaining mana into him, hoping the warmth of her magic was enough to numb his senses. 

He acknowledged her mercy with a soft kiss into her hair. He continued, his struggling voice strengthened. “To cherish the earth’s children with our shade… and flourish beautifully… with the splendor of our branches and leaves forever intertwined.” She knew he was smiling because she could hear the pleasure of the idea in his voice when he spoke.

Ellana smiled as well. He was ever still the sweet talker. “Not wolves?” She was beginning to falter now, her body growing increasingly weaker. Her magic dimmed just slightly. 

He responded with a familiar playfulness. “That would be nice as well…” he shifted and he somehow found the strength to squeeze her closer to him and she again allowed it. 

“How about spirits?”

“Mm…”

She sensed a slip in the balance between them and she whimpered when she felt it then. The draw of the Beyond. It was calling to him as much as it was calling to her. No, no, just a little while longer in this life. One moment more existing here together.

Sighing, he rested his head against hers and she grasped at him desperately, “Come what may, I hope to find you again… _vhenan_.” His voice was lifted, light, and hopeful and he spoke no more after that.

She wept softly and closed her eyes as the world burned around them.

**Author's Note:**

> Wtf. WTF. Let's hope this never happens.


End file.
